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[Beardless]

Anyway, I am going to chalk this up to fundamental differences between US and European culture, AND LEAVE IT THERE. It's the Euros Saying the US is acting odd, and the American's saying it's perfectly acceptable. Them's are cultural differences. Not political ones. Get over it.

Not so. This American (who lives in Boston and was very relieved when they finally caught the guy) finds it very disturbing. And it is political, because it's just the sort of sentiment that is all too often converted into blind hatred of the other. It might be different in other countries (I doubt it), but here it is way too easy to leverage patriotism into atrocity.

[misko27]

Anyway, I am going to chalk this up to fundamental differences between US and European culture, AND LEAVE IT THERE. It's the Euros Saying the US is acting odd, and the American's saying it's perfectly acceptable. Them's are cultural differences. Not political ones. Get over it.

Not so. This American (who lives in Boston and was very relieved when they finally caught the guy) finds it very disturbing. And it is political, because it's just the sort of sentiment that is all too often converted into blind hatred of the other. It might be different in other countries (I doubt it), but here it is way too easy to leverage patriotism into atrocity.

I am going to call you the exception. I am an american, and I find that it is not odd. These people went out of their way to cripple and injure other human beings. Some people find their capture a, happy occasion! Now, Let's not argue about "who killed who".


Cookie if you catch the reference.

[scriver]

There's really no difference between nationalism and patriotism. It's just an attempt to paint nationalism in a positive light. But thr truth is that's it's the same horrible and uncivil mentality.

Personally, it seems to me this behaviour stems from the US never facing it's own fascism and nationalism after WWII like the European west had to do. We had to look ourself in the mirror end see how we had contributed - directly or through culture - to the Holocaust, realise that nobody was very different from the Germans and change. But the US just went all "U! S! A! U! S! A! We bailed you out lolololo now let's find ourselves some more women to forcibly kiss" and never dealt with it. So it's remained ingrained into your society.

[Loud Whispers]

I am going to call you the exception. I am an american, and I find that it is not odd. These people went out of their way to cripple and injure other human beings. Some people find their capture a, happy occasion! Now, Let's not argue about "who killed who".

Brooker being hilariously relevant.

[Dunamisdeos]

I do not live in Boston, and was therefore not under direct threat of having my limbs removed by shrapnel if I left my home this week. So my opinion on Boston-ites initial reaction, or their chosen method of celebration, is irrelevant. Sinec I have never been in a situation remotely similar, it is completely irrelevant. Ergo, any inflammatory or contradictory ruminations on the above subjects which I may have (from my comfortable computer chair) are irrelevant.


On a lighter note:

If you meet an American nationalist you'll know it, mostly because they never shut up about it

Go back to Khazakstralia. Seriously, though, I agree: the chant is a cultural thing. Europe has been down that road, and it ended in 1945. They're fully entitled to be skeptical about an overabundance of national pride. Considering world history, I consider it a luxury simply to live in a country that hasn't experienced the kinds of things that make you feel iffy about waving your flag.

@Scriver
Not quite sure what you mean there. If you think America hasn't seen it's share of atrocities, you should consider that we were not the first people on this continent, and maybe go ahead and wikipedia the trail of tears.

I think Patriotism is the concept of being proud of your country and what it represents to the rest of humanity, and Nationalism is the concept of being blindly certain of it's inherent superiority. To be completely blunt and objective, we see both here in America. Nationalism is indeed a dangerous thing. I for one am proud to live where I live, but hold no illusions that we are above the rest of the world in all ways.

[scriver]

@Scriver
Not quite sure what you mean there. If you think America hasn't seen it's share of atrocities, you should consider that we were not the first people on this continent, and maybe go ahead and wikipedia the trail of tears.

I'm saying the US hasn't faced the atrocities committed in for their fascism and nationalism, not colonialism, and how the difference between Germany and the rest of the West were miniscule. You know, like your own concentration camps for Japanese, or how German eugenics laws were directly based on American, and how German race and eugenics research was based on American and sometimes even funded by American corporations.

I think Patriotism is the concept of being proud of your country and what it represents to the rest of humanity, and Nationalism is the concept of being blindly certain of it's inherent superiority.

In other words you think it's the same thing, you're just drawing an arbitrary line between them with somehow makes one positive and the other extremer one bad. Like I said, just attempting to paint it in a positive light. It's a bad part of your culture, and the first step to betterment is recognising it for what it is.

[Owlbread]

Nationalism isn't always the same as "ethnic nationalism". It's a bit too broad for that. There's also ideologies like "civic nationalism" that can be summed up neatly in the following maxim "The decisions for a country/area are best made by the people in that country/area". No minority extermination, no eugenics, no concentration camps etc.

Also: this is going to be one hell of a derail when things really get going. It'll be like ETA took out the Oriental Express with semtex.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

You know, like your own concentration camps for Japanese

It is not really fair to compare Japanese internment to the Holocaust. The former was based off the assumption that Japanese-Americans and Japanese immigrants to America might want to help Japan by sabotaging the war effort. This, while erroneous and racist, is not at all like the bold-faced racial extermination campaign that the Nazis waged.

[Loud Whispers]

You know, like your own concentration camps for Japanese

It is not really fair to compare Japanese internment to the Holocaust.

If we needs must get into semantics Scriver wasn't making such a comparison with the holocaust, but instead the concentration camps. Of which, they were indeed concentration camps. The people who built them were supported by Americans who wanted the Japanese put into concentration camps, with that specific wording. Eisenhower called them concentration camps.

[scriver]

Nationalism isn't always the same as "ethnic nationalism". It's a bit too broad for that. There's also ideologies like "civic nationalism" that can be summed up neatly in the following maxim "The decisions for a country/area are best made by the people in that country/area". No minority extermination, no eugenics, no concentration camps etc.

Also: this is going to be one hell of a derail when things really get going. It'll be like ETA took out the Oriental Express with semtex.

No. Fascism, nationalism and racism are all too intertwined. I know you probably think your Scottish nationalism is different, but I doubt it. If you ever get independence and don't have the English to blame and hate on any more I think you'll see people turning on the immigrants in a heartbeat.

You know, like your own concentration camps for Japanese

It is not really fair to compare Japanese internment to the Holocaust. The former was based off the assumption that Japanese-Americans and Japanese immigrants to America might want to help Japan by sabotaging the war effort. This, while erroneous and racist, is not at all like the bold-faced racial extermination campaign that the Nazis waged.

And this is exactly the kind of denialist behaviour I'm talking about. It is very much alike and the same. The German's just went further.

[GreatJustice]

I, for one, don't understand the logic of the people talking about how effective the lockdown was. The fellow was caught after it was called off, outside of the cordoned area, and only because some random person spotted the guy and called the cops. The cops could have been playing tag in the streets for all the difference it made.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

You know, like your own concentration camps for Japanese

It is not really fair to compare Japanese internment to the Holocaust. The former was based off the assumption that Japanese-Americans and Japanese immigrants to America might want to help Japan by sabotaging the war effort. This, while erroneous and racist, is not at all like the bold-faced racial extermination campaign that the Nazis waged.

And this is exactly the kind of denialist behaviour I'm talking about. It is very much alike and the same. The German's just went further.

It's not denialist by any stretch of the imagination. It happened. It was wrong that it happened. But it being wrong does not make it the same thing as the Holocaust. By your logic anything which involves even remotely similar concepts can be connected to atrocities because they "just went further". The start and end goals of the internment and the holocaust are both different.

[Pnx]

It was done to the minority in question because there was a political drive to see it done. Because there was a perception that they were a threat to the well being of the nation's war efforts by either some form of sabotage, or through making the population question the war, and because nationalistic fervor had made the population perceive these people that lived among them but were culturally unlike them as a threat that should be take out.

[scriver]

MSH, I'm not saying your denying the events, I'm saying your in denial about how they connect into the bigger picture.

[Max White]

It was done to the minority in question because there was a political drive to see it done. Because there was a perception that they were a threat to the well being of the nation's war efforts by either some form of sabotage, or through making the population question the war, and because nationalistic fervor had made the population perceive these people that lived among them but were culturally unlike them as a threat that should be take out.

Are you talking about the Nazi concentration camps, or the US ones?